


Flower Crown

by hellostarlight20



Series: If only... [2]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Innuendo, Jack's POV, Sappiness, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-23
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2019-05-27 09:30:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15021701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellostarlight20/pseuds/hellostarlight20
Summary: They've arrived just in time for the Welcoming Dance on the longest day of the year. Rose makes flower crowns for everyone.





	Flower Crown

**Author's Note:**

  * For [goingtothetardis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goingtothetardis/gifts).



> GoingtotheTARDIS asked: Flower crown. Hmmm. Maybe Nine/Rose? :) Thanks!

Jack blinked at the Doctor. He slowly removed his hand from his trousers and mentally berated his mouth for hanging open. To be fair, he’d seen stranger things. To be even more fair, this was not what he envisioned. Ever. When it came to the Doctor.

The Doctor scowled at him. “Why is your hand down your trousers, Captain?”

“I forget.” He blinked again. Nope, the image hadn’t changed. “Bugger!”

Oh. Right. Hand down trousers not because of any sort of pleasure, because a very prickly bug had somehow found its way along his inner thigh and Jack just knew its goal wasn’t pleasure. “Ow!”

The Doctor frowned, arms crossed as Jack shucked off his shoes and stripped his very tight jeans off. Sure enough, a small black beetle-like thing scrambled up his thigh looking for a tasty treat.

“Oh, no you don’t.” Jack glared at the beetle-thing, who glared back. “What did you think you were going to get, anyway?”

The beetle-thing, of course, did not answer. Unfortunately for it, Jack recognized the deadly species and slapped it dead, then stomped on it for good measure. Then he looked back up at the Doctor and didn’t bother to redress. There were more important things than trousers or deadly bugs.

“Why are you wearing a flower crown, Doc?”

Blue eyes blazing, face set, the Doctor crossed his arms over his chest. Damn sexy that post, even with a flower crown. Even as he looked at Jack as if he were the stupidest human in the entire universe. The instant the words left Jack’s mouth, and he registered the light laughter coming from the crowded room behind the Doctor, he knew he was.

He had to get used to a new dynamic here.

“Rose made it for me,” the Doctor said as if it were the most obvious thing in the universe.

Jack had to agree, it kinda was. Slowly he nodded. “Looks good on you.” One eyebrow rose, and that dribbled-on-your-shirt look took on a whole new meaning. Jack persevered. And valiantly swallowed a laugh. “The flowers have any meaning?”

“Don’t know.” He shrugged, and Jack had a feeling the Doctor lied. “Doesn’t matter.”

All right, that part was true. The Doctor didn’t care if they did or not. Because, after all, Rose made it for him. Jack had traveled with them for only two days, not counting that first World War II adventure, and he already knew the dynamics.

The fact he forgot them could only be attributed to the fact _the Doctor wore a flower crown_.

All in all, it didn’t matter because Rose made it for him. And of course the flowers had meaning. For all Rose was a 21st century woman, she was observant and canny. She knew the flowers had meaning, had undoubtably asked. And promptly kept quiet about it. Because she was also shrewd enough to pretend she didn’t know so as to smile flirtatiously up at the Doctor and bat her eyes.

Jack had seen that work on the Doctor more than once in his couple days here.

“Jack!” Rose’s voice drifted from the room and he looked up.

Rose wore the jeans and t-shirt she had earlier, but now her long hair hung over her shoulders in braids, a variety of flowers woven in. She looked stunning. Jack flicked his gaze to the Doctor just long enough to confirm he, too, stared at Rose.

The Doctor’s gaze, in those few short seconds, devoured her with a longing Jack prayed to every deity in the cosmos he finally acted on.

Not that Jack expected anything else. The Doctor staring at Rose? Totally normal occurrence.

“Oh, there you are.” Her brilliant smile dimmed, and Jack hate he was the cause of that, and she cocked her head. “Why aren’t you wearing your trousers?”

Not the response he’d hoped for, but alas. Shrugging he scooped them up and gave them a hard yank. “Nasty bug.” He peered inside each let until he was satisfied they were bug free. “Tried to bite me.”

“Oh. Kay.” Rose nodded. “Here,” she said as if seeing him in only his pants was a normal occurrence. It wasn’t, more’s the pity. “I made you a flower crown, too.”

“Oh, excellent!” He grinned as he tugged up his trousers and bent his head for Rose to place the crown on him. “What do the flowers mean?” He looked at the flowers in her hair then to the Doctor’s crown. “My flowers are different than yours.” He really tried to keep his voice even—and failed. He could live with that. “Your flowers match the Doctor’s.”

Rose’s eyes widened, just slightly, and her cheeks took on the slightest tinge of a blush, but she shrugged. “Life, happiness, friendship. The sisters had long explanations for each, but basically that.”

Jack nodded and did his best to keep his knowing smirk an easy smile. He failed at that, too. The sisters, a group of naturalists gathered for their solstice celebration, laughed as they exited the room, each wearing their own hair in long flower-braids. And very little else.

Oh, the important bits were covered, based on their individual species, but no other inch of skin bore clothing of any kind.

“Will you dance with us for the solstice?” One asked, taking both Rose’s hand and the Doctor’s. “It’s almost sunset.”

“Course!” Rose grinned again, this time at the Doctor who looked good-naturedly disgruntled.

He did not, Jack noted, disagree.  
Jack was not, of course, surprised.

He hung back and watched them walk to the solstice circle, grin widening. They naturally—pun fully intended—drifted to each other, dropping the sister’s hand and taking each other’s. the Doctor looked down at Rose, and though Jack stood meters away from them, he knew what look the Time Lord gave her.

It did funny things to his heart, that organ Jack never thought would hold such emotion again. 

“You may join us as well,” a pair of sisters said as they each took a hand. “Unmarried visitors are also accepted during our welcoming dance.”

Jack’s smile grew even wider. “Unmarried, eh? Ladies—” he extended his arms to the two women— “how did you guess that Rose and the Doctor were married?”

“Rose insisted they were not,” the blue-haired woman said as they walked toward the dance circle. “However, in our experience marriage is an exchange of vows, not necessarily of bodily fluids.”

Jack choked on a laugh but did not disagree.

“And it’s our understanding that Rose and the Doctor have made their own vows,” the green-haired woman added.

“You’re not wrong.” Jack laughed, but almost instantly sobered, an admittedly sappy smile on his face now. Two days. Two days and look how they’d changed him. “Not wrong at all. They don’t have a traditional marriage, with sex and all, more’s the pity.” He shook his head and sighed. “But they have made vows to each other and would do anything for the other.”

His voice trailed off as he watched Rose and her Doctor dance together. Jack wished he had Rose’s camera. The Doctor looked at her with such adoration, such love. How did she not see it? How had the Doctor not broken down and confessed?

If only the Doctor said something. If only Rose gathered enough courage to make the first move. If only…


End file.
